Prepare yourselves: R.E.M. have decided to become a rock band again. That’s right, if interviews with their long-time manager, Bertis Downs, are to be believed, the band have abandoned the laid-back, experimental vibe of 2004’s Around the Sun on what would appear to be the aptly titled Accelerate (Warner Bros., April 1), delving head-on into louder, harder-hitting guitar rockers for what should be one of the bigger releases this spring.

It’s been more than 16 years since R.E.M.’s old Athens pals the B-52’S recorded a studio album. But with the likes of New York’s Scissor Sisters, Daft Punk, and LCD Soundsystem pumping out discofied party jams, Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, and Cindy Wilson have been honing their chops out on the road in anticipation of the first B-52’s album on Astralwerks. The aptly titled Funplex (March 25) was produced by Steve Osbourne, whose credits include discs for New Order and Happy Mondays, and features titles like “Love in the Year 3000,” “Deviant Ingredient,” and “Keep This Party Going.”

It hasn’t been quite as long since Adam Duritz and his COUNTING CROWS tested the modern-rock waters, but the band’s new Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings (Geffen, March 25) is their first release in five years. There were rumors that they had retained Rick Rubin to produce the disc. If so, it didn’t work out: Gil Norton and Brian Deck produced in two parts. As you could guess from the title, this one deals in themes of Saturday-night sinning and day-after redemption.

Copy editors all over the English-speaking world are celebrating the news that PANIC AT THE DISCO have, for their sophomore album, opted to drop that pesky exclamation point. But the band, who injected a little electronic production into their melodic emo guitar pop on 2005’s A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, couldn’t help getting a little jiggy with the punctuation on the title of their new Pretty. Odd (Decaydance/Fueled by Ramen, March 25). At least they’ve dropped the Pro Tooled production in favor of something more organic and, they say, “Beatlesque.”

Ohio’s two-man BLACK KEYS went into the studio last year hoping to collaborate with Ike Turner. Although they did write a couple of keepers with Turner, they ended up in a Cleveland studio with Danger Mouse behind the production board, working on what will be the fifth Black Keys disc, Attack & Release (Nonesuch, April 1). In other words, expect a lot more than just drums and guitar on this one.

Danger Mouse has also been back in the studio with his GNARLS BARKLEY partner Ceee-Lo, and they’ve been cooking up their second album of grooving retro-futurist R&B. In the wake of St. Elsewhere, they picked a more appropriate TV show when it came time to name the new one: The Odd Couple (Atlantic, April 8). All you blogger types are probably already burning copies of the disc’s leaked lead single, “Run.”

MOBY comes full circle, back to the rave-style dance productions that put him on the musical map more than a decade ago, with his new Last Night (Mute, April 1). And it feels like the ’90s all over again with the BREEDERS, too. They’re set to release the Steve Albini–produced Mountain Battles (4AD, April 8), which features both Kim and Kelley Deal.

NICK CAVE didn’t rest on his laurels after the success he had last year with the homonymous debut from his Bad Seeds offshoot Grinderman. No, he went right back into the studio with the reconvened BAD SEEDS and pumped out another album full of guts, God, and glory, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Anti-). It’s already out in the UK and is set for April 8 release here in the US.

R.E.M. Unless you’re a diehard fan, wait for their new album in the spring.

Here and now No band ever made a late-career statement of purpose just by quoting “Louie Louie” — but it never hurts.

Broken Bells | Broken Bells Danger Mouse ( né Brian Burton) had a pretty good run through the '00s, a decade that saw him go from a mash-up nobody to producer du jour for a motley assortment of artists.

’Round the outside Although music isn’t necessarily getting more political in content these days, it does seem to be borrowing a trope from the political world.

Beck It’s music for summer nights of muggy confusion and post-sunset soul searching, and when Beck takes the mic, he rocks some straight-up Shiva shit.

Local heroes Alongside the Feelies, R.E.M., and the Replacements, Mark Mulcahy’s Miracle Legion was one of the most promising of the indie bands of the mid-’80s.

London falling Damon Albarn — Blur frontman, Gorillaz supremo, and now millennial minstrel to the drowning city of London — is that eerie modern specimen, the pop star who talks like a critic. The Good, The Bad, and the Queen, "Kingdom of Doom" (streaming video)

Gorillaz at the Apollo There were puppets, singing and dancing middle schoolers, a gospel choir, a 14-piece string section from Juilliard, a who’s who of guests, including Neneh Cherry, De La Soul, Ike Turner, and a lollipop-sucking Shaun Ryder. But no Jamie Hewlett animations?!

Gnarls Barkley: Rebirth of soul I’m probably not the only one who went to the Gnarls Barkly show Friday night at Avalon wondering if the costumes would be the most interesting part. Slideshow: Gnarls Barkley at Avalon, August 11, 2006

Chairmen of the boards Not unlike Swedish, Tagalog, and Esperanto, music is a language, with its own conjugations and (lewdly) dangling participles.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS | July 02, 2009 The New York Post got to resurrect its priceless "Wacko Jacko" headline. Barbara Walters scored Super Bowl-level ratings without having to lift a pretty little finger. And Michael Jackson, well, no matter how you slice it, he got screwed royally.

ARRESTING DEVELOPMENTS | September 16, 2008 Lack of talent, charisma, and/or personality can prevent a good band from achieving greatness — but too much of a good thing can also be a problem.

ROCK THERAPIES | July 22, 2008 A little over four years ago, the Boston music scene lost one of its cuter couples when singer-songwriter Blake Hazard and guitarist/producer John Dragonetti left town for LA.

FORTUNATE ONE | July 07, 2008 It was no surprise to find Chris Brokaw in Hawaii last week, just two Saturdays before he’s due back in Cambridge to pull a double shift upstairs at the Middle East.